All I Want For Christmas Is To End This Stupid Warby Jonathan David Morrisjdm@readjdm.com

Special to TLE

I like how people these days are out of their goddam
minds.

When I was a kid, nobody cared if you said "Merry
Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." Both phrases had the
same degree of utility. I distinctly remember this.

Back then, "Merry Christmas" was the odds-on favorite
just because more people celebrated Christmas than any
other holiday. This is still true, but the difference
is, back then, it didn't matter if you said "Merry
Christmas" to someone who didn't celebrate Christmas,
because you didn't really mean they should be merry
about Jesus. You just meant they should have a festive
month of December. For all intents and purposes,
"Merry Christmas" was the "shalom" of holiday
greetings. People used it the same way they used
"hello" and "goodbye."

"Happy Holidays" was exactly the same, except slightly
different. It didn't mean you should enjoy every
holiday in December whether you liked it or not; it
just meant you should enjoy whichever ones you
celebrated. For some people, this meant Christmas. For
others, it meant Chanukah. And for others, it meant
Hanukah. It would've meant Kwanzaa, too, if Kwanzaa
existed back then (which, to the best of my
recollection, it didn't). But the point is, no one
ever accused you of bowing at the altar of diversity
if you said "Happy Holidays." No one ever said that
the phrase was "just another example of political
correctness run amok."

Back then, people said whatever they wanted to say.
And for better or worse, they thought nothing of it.

Now everything's all screwed up.

According to Fox News, there is a War on Christmas
going on in this country. And because of this war,
"Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" are politically
loaded phrases. In fact, they've come to be known as
natural rivals. Whichever greeting you choose, it says
something about where you stand ideologically now. If
you say "Merry Christmas," you lean to the Right. And
if you say "Happy Holidays," you lean to the Left.

As someone who doesn't like to put much thought into
the things I say to people, I find this somewhat
annoying.

Every year, right around Thanksgiving, you start to
hear horror stories about nativity scenes being banned
from town halls, or Christmas carols from public
school holiday concerts. Then Bill O'Reilly comes on
and lets you know about the stores you should avoid,
like Target and Sears, because they used "Happy
Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" in their
circulars (which is nothing like Bill's nemesis, Jesse
Jackson, who calls for boycotts for not hiring black
people). This year, there's even a book about the War
on Christmas called "The War on Christmas: How the
Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is
Worse Than You Thought," by John Gibson, which
provides 256 pages of documented proof that Christmas
is the central front in a larger war between secular
liberals and conservative Christians.

For this reason, you're not supposed to say "Happy
Holidays" anymore, because "Happy Holidays" is no
longer an innocent seasonal greeting. It's an
insidious weapon, designed to "take Christ out of
Christmas." If you say it, swarms of card-carrying
ACLU members will come to your town and unplug your
Christmas tree and ruin America. You've got to stand
up and say "Merry Christmas" and watch Fox News
instead.

Now, personally, I don't doubt that the things being
reported as War on Christmas skirmishes are actually
happening. Whether they constitute a concentrated
anti-Christmas campaign is another story. They could
just be a series of isolated incidents. I wouldn't
know. Part of me wants to believe that this war is
legitimate. I mean, it's the only way to explain why
some people would be calling Christmas trees "holiday
spruces" now. At least with a war that term would have
context. Otherwise, it's just plain irritating in that
let's-show-how-intelligent-we-are-by-being-inclusive
sort of way. But then part of me thinks this whole War
on Christmas is only so much paranoia. Calling
Christmas trees "holiday spruces" may be stupid, but
what's it matter? There's nothing inherently Christian
about Christmas trees anyway. They're pagan symbols.
Christ was born in a mangernot under a pine tree.
And he was probably delivered by Josephnot Santa.

I think there will always be non-Christians who resent
Christianity's overwhelming influence on our culture,
just like there will always be Christians who resent
non-Christians for not being Christian. That's just
the way it is. I'm over it.

But this is what leads me to my overall point.

I'm not bringing up the War on Christmas because I
want to resolve the differences between the two sides.
I'm not even bringing it up because I'm trying to
prove or disprove that the war is actually happening.
No. I'm bringing it up because its coverage alone
directly affects me. Because of this war, I'm supposed
to watch what I say around this time of year. All of a
sudden, I'm supposed to put thought into whether I say
"Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays."

Why is this a problem for me? It's a problem because
putting thought into these phrases defeats the point
of saying them in the first place.

I'm the kind of person who appreciates convenience and
expediency in my dealings with fellow human beings.
Put another way: If I don't know you, then I don't
really like you; and if we're going to talk to each
other, I'd like to make it brief.

I don't say things like "Merry Christmas" or "Happy
Holidays" because I care if people are merry, or
because my words will somehow make them happy if they
aren't already. I say these things because they
humanize me. They make me seem like a normal person,
when, deep down, I feel like I'm too good to talk to
people. To me, saying "Merry Christmas" or "Happy
Holidays" is the same thing as if I blessed you after
you sneezed. I realize your soul isn't escaping
through your nose holes. There's nothing you need me
to bless here. I'm just saying "God bless you"or
the secular "Bless you"because that's what people
say when someone sneezes. If I partake in these small
little gestures, then I can get away with my regular
attitude, which tends to be curmudgeonly.

That's all phrases like "Merry Christmas" and "Happy
Holidays" really exist for. They have nothing at all
to do with religion. They're for people like me to let
people like you know we can successfully co-exist with
one another.

That's what bugs me about this War on Christmas.
Before it started, I could use "Merry Christmas" and
"Happy Holidays" whenever I wanted. I could use one
for a while, and then use the other when I got tired
of it. It didn't matter who I said what to, because
even the people who didn't like it weren't about to
complain.

But now? All that's changed. Now, if I say "Happy
Holidays," and the person I say it to celebrates
Christmas, I run the risk of offending them. They'll
start to think I'm some kind of diversity-worshipping
liberal tree-hugger who only hugs holiday spruces but
wants to cut down all those good old-fashioned
Christian evangelical pine trees. I don't want that
reputation. It's not accurate. I don't worship
diversity. In fact, I'm not even sure I like people
who aren't like me. But at the same time, I can't go
around saying "Merry Christmas," either. Because now
that people have decided they care whether you say
"Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" to them, I run
the risk of coming across like some self-righteous
bigot who wants to shove Christmas down non-Christian
throats. I'm nothing like that. And even if I was, I
wouldn't want that reputation, because I'd hate to
give John Gibson the satisfaction.

So I don't know what to say anymore. I'm at a loss.

The way I see it, people need to get over themselves
and stop being so easily offended in this country. I
know a lot of people like to say exactly what I just
said in the previous sentence, but I don't think most
of them believe it, because most of them turn around
and get offended by things like "Merry Christmas" and
"Happy Holidays" anyway. These phrases were never
meant to be political weapons. They're a common
courtesy, like free mints and toothpicks on the
counter in a restaurant. It's like when you see
someone that you haven't seen in a long time, and they
tell you, "Say hi to so and so for me." You always say
that you will, but only to bow out of the conversation
gracefully. It's not like you're actually going to
tell so and so that such and such said hi to them.
That's ridiculous. If that's how people communicated,
nothing would ever get done.

The point is, anyone who can figure out a way to be
offended by "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays"
probably deserves to be offended. Instead of getting
all self-righteous and outraged about two simple,
meaningless words, you should be thankful that
anyone's going out of their way to wish you well.

I don't know what I'll say to people this December.
Maybe I won't say anything to anyone. Or maybe I'll
find the strength within me to say "Merry Christmas"
and "Happy Holidays" in spite of how uncomfortable I
now feel with using them. I don't know. But at this
point, I'm leaning towards an altogether different
seasonal greeting. The way I figure, if people are
going to be offended by what I say anyway, then I
might as well get the most out of offending them. So
from now on, I think I'm just going to say, "Whatever
your faith, go f--- yourself," to complete and total
strangers. Just lay it on them out of nowhere while
I'm walking down the street or picking up breakfast
one Saturday at the bagel store.

I know it isn't as catchy as "Merry Christmas" or
"Happy Holidays." And it probably won't help me come
across like a normal member of society, either. But I
still sort of hope it catches on.

Jonathan David Morris writes a weekly column for The
Aquarian and other publications. He can be reached at
jdm@readjdm.com.